Getting used to A New Working Environment: Skills Needed

 

Adapting to the working environment is challenging for newly graduated students, and it is even more difficult if they choose to work in multicultural organizations. They had to overcome obstacles to integrate. To succeed in integrating, fresh students should prepare for yourself essential skills. 

Advanced language

In an age of globalization, language is an important factor in workplace communication when working in multicultural companies. New language improvement helps people can communicate easily. English is an international language and if graduates want to integrate into multicultural workplaces, they must be good at English. Moreover, knowing more than a foreign language will help fresh graduates have opportunities to communicate and approach various different cultures. This will build up relationships with colleagues from other backgrounds. In fact, young adults in Asia, especially are trying to learn not only English but also numerous languages such as Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French, and so on. 

Moreover, non-verbal language plays an important role. Body language is a crucial factor of non-verbal language. In addition to physical motions like head and hand movements, proxemics, and facial expressions like smiling and frowning, body language also considers the distance between communicators.  In some Asian cultures, they greet others by bowing instead of shaking hands like in Western countries. Moreover, several cultures have varying degrees of comfort with respect to touching and personal space. However, some culture limits the space with strangers. When in doubt, communicators should keep in space with colleagues. For proxemics, the space for the social zone fluctuates from 48 inches to 12 feet and the figure for the public zone is more than 12 feet.

Listening skills

Listening is a way for adapting quickly to a new environment. This is a necessary skill because when you listen, you can understand clearly the ways existing colleagues complete their tasks and the cultures of the organization. If you work in a professional environment, they can use specialized terms in conservation. In order to communicate effectively, you need to understand what they are saying. Moreover, listening helps to understand issues and limit errors and misunderstandings in the working process.

Collaboration skills

All organizations are aware of collaboration between employees. In multicultural companies, cooperation is more important because employees have to work and connect with colleagues from other cultures. People from other cultures will have different thoughts, behaviors, emotional expressions and so on. With huge differences, working in a group is not easy. They must listen, understand and respect these differences. In order to increase collaboration, you should respect ideas although it is not suitable for you.